Friday, January 30, 2009

Exactly right. We know this is factual from our experiences in the 1970's, before the Fed adopted Milton Friedman's Monetarist theories, and reduced the money supply - effectively ending inflation for almost 30 years now. And Osama wants to return to this?This "Porkulus" package is a disgrace. A TRILLION dollars worth of midnight basketball and Gore-bal warming research?! He truly is Jimmuh recast! We shall see if the republicans have learned their lesson - or if they will remain in the wilderness for another 40 years...T

The same way Republicans beat it when Bill Clinton proposed a modest $35 billion stimulus in the teeth of the 1992-1993 recession. The GOP nit picked each spending item and highlighted midnight basketball courts and swimming pools that were funded in the package. Clinton, for his part, didn’t really care what the money was being spent on, he wanted to be sure it was spent to give the economy a boost before he cut spending and raised taxes to balance the budget. So the president accomodated all of the pet projects of Democratic lawmakers. The resulting publicity made the package radioactive.

Republicans should feature each element of the package — just as they have highlighted the contraception and global The package is losing support almost daily. According to Rasmussen, only 42% of Americans now support it. The key is for the Republicans to attack its specific line items to show how overblown it really is.And it is terribly important to beat, or at least cut back the stimulus legislation. What we allocate in deficit spending and “refundable” tax cuts (i.e. welfare) today we will pay for in inflation tomorrow.

In the seven years beetween 2000 and 2007, the money supply rose from $600 billion to $800 billion. In 2008, alone, it more than doubled from $800 billion to $1.7 trillion! We cannot sustain this level of increase in the money supply without having way too much money chasing way too few goods and services, sending prices up into double digit inflation. While the economy is in shell shock, at the moment, we face deflation. But once it begins to come back and the dollars come out of hiding, we will find the resulting inflation intractible and very difficult to cure.Full article in new window

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Like, like, like! Marcia Marcia Marcia! Another whole generation that has lost the lessons of the 70's and 80's (and 30's and 40's). Appeasement NEVER works. Thank you, leftist college profs/aged 60's radicals!...T

"These poor souls have no memorial. Least of all at an American university."

I spoke for a few minutes to the 20-year-old woman seated across the aisle from me.

She: What brings you to Denver?"

Me: I am giving a speech.

She: What do you do?

Me: I'm a radio talk show host.

She: Who did you vote for?

Me: McCain

She: Why?

Me: Smaller government and the war on terror.

She: Terror is the new communism.

Me: Communism killed about a hundred million people. And who do you think attacked and killed 3,000 of us on Sept. 11?

She: The government.

For the record, as I believe this to be essential to understanding this young woman's views, she is a student attending the University of California Santa Barbara.

Truth is she had to be a student at a major university. She would never have come up with "Terror is the new Communism" on her own. It is a moral obscenity that one has to learn.

Of course, there is an irony to this statement. Meant in the opposite way she meant it, I could largely assent to the proposition that terror is the new communism. Communism was an enslaving and murderous threat in its time and the Jihadism is such a threat in our lifetime.

But that is not how this young woman meant the statement. As she has learned history and the contemporary world, communism was a bogeyman in its time and terror is a bogeyman in our time.

When I told her that communism had killed 100 million people, I could not tell if she even processed the words. It was as if had I uttered a series of nonsense syllables. She either didn't believe me or didn't care.

On the assumption that I had met a person with a normal conscience, the only rational explanation for her non-reaction is that she didn't believe me and regarded what I said as right-wing propaganda (just as the belief in that Islamist terror threatens us).

In her belief that neither communism nor terror were/are real threats, I suspect this young woman represents many college students. If one wants to understand what left-wing dominance in university social sciences departments produces, one merely had to meet this young woman.

At most universities, communism is a non-evil, indeed, largely a non-issue. The most enslaving and murderous movement in history is almost never taught as such. When communism is mentioned at all, it is usually solely in order to show how vile anti-communists were. Thus, as little as students may know about McCarthyism, most students far more readily identify it with evil than they do communism. Indeed, more could probably identify Joseph McCarthy than Joseph Stalin.

Nor is this a matter of students not being taught to label anything as evil. They have no problem labeling Nazism, Fascism, George W. Bush, slavery, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and tobacco companies as evil. It's just that they won't label communism as such.

Does one in 10.000 students know of the communist terror-famine that took about 6 million Ukarainian lives. How many know about the communist Pol Pot, who butchered nearly one-third of his fellow Cambodians? Or how many innocents were murdered in the Gulag Archipelago (or could even identify it)? Or that China's communist tyrant Mao Zedong killed about 60 million of his fellow Chinese? Or that Communist North Korea is essentially a concentration camp in the guise of a country?

The answer to all these questions is very few.

And that, quite frankly, breaks my heart. I am currently reading "Mao: The Secret Life," almost universally regarded, even in the mainstream media, as the most important book on Mao ever written.

According to the authors, in 1930-31 alone, Mao and his gang developed 120 types of torture for use on innocent people he wanted to force into phony confessions so as to rule by terror. They included burning the vaginas of wives of opponents and pulling wires through men's penises, which were then attached to their ears and plucked.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Despite the severe winter storm warnings, these demonstrators are making ready for Al Gore's appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday morning to testify on the "urgent need" to combat global warming...T

Monday, January 26, 2009

Yes, the modus operandi of the Chicago radical leftists back to the days of Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss! Terrific insights from Rush penned by Byron York here. He is the only one since Reagan that really "Get's It" - that government IS the problem, not the answer to the problem!We can only hope that he, as Byron speculates, does become the leader of our party of last resort, and not the likes of our feckless congressional leaders...T

According to an account in the New York Post, President Barack Obama yesterday told Republican leaders, "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done." With George W. Bush now off the stage, it may be that Obama and some of his fellow Democrats view Limbaugh, and not John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, or any other elected official, as the true leader of the Republican opposition. This morning I asked Rush for his thoughts on all this, and here is his response:

"There are two things going on here. One prong of the Great Unifier's plan is to isolate elected Republicans from their voters and supporters by making the argument about me and not about his plan. He is hoping that these Republicans will also publicly denounce me and thus marginalize me. And who knows? Are ideological and philosophical ties enough to keep the GOP loyal to their voters? Meanwhile, the effort to foist all blame for this mess on the private sector continues unabated when most of the blame for this current debacle can be laid at the feet of the Congress and a couple of former presidents. And there is a strategic reason for this."

Secondly, here is a combo quote from the meeting:

"If we don't get this done we (the Democrats) could lose seats and I could lose re-election. But we can't let people like Rush Limbaugh stall this. That's how things don't get done in this town."

To make the argument about me instead of his plan makes sense from his perspective. Obama's plan would buy votes for the Democrat Party, in the same way FDR's New Deal established majority power for 50 years of Democrat rule, and it would also simultaneously seriously damage any hope of future tax cuts. It would allow a majority of American voters to guarantee no taxes for themselves going forward. It would burden the private sector and put the public sector in permanent and firm control of the economy. Put simply, I believe his stimulus is aimed at re-establishing "eternal" power for the Democrat Party rather than stimulating the economy because anyone with a brain knows this is NOT how you stimulate the economy. If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of this TRILLION dollar debacle.

Obama was angry that Merrill Lynch used $1.2 million of TARP money to remodel an executive suite. Excuse me, but didn't Merrill have to hire a decorator and contractor? Didn't they have to buy the new furnishings? What's the difference in that and Merrill loaning that money to a decorator, contractor and goods supplier to remodel Warren Buffet's office? Either way, stimulus in the private sector occurs. Are we really at the point where the bad PR of Merrill getting a redecorated office in the process is reason to smear them? How much money will the Obamas spend redecorating the White House residence? Whose money will be spent? I have no problem with the Obamas redoing the place. It is tradition. 600 private jets flown by rich Democrats flew into the Inauguration. That's fine but the auto execs using theirs is a crime? In both instances, the people on those jets arrived in Washington wanting something from Washington, not just good will.

If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of the trillion dollar debacle.

One more thing, Byron. Your publication and website have documented Obama's ties to the teachings of Saul Alinksy while he was community organizing in Chicago. Here is Rule 13 of Alinksy's Rules for Radicals:

Thursday, January 22, 2009

A new feature is included in NAVITOR - DoxTop - My Publications. It's previewed here with my Thesis, published in 2001, and is a permanent feature in the left hand column, near the bottom of the applications.If you love military history, the study of WWI, and/or Winston Churchill, then this is for you...T

Fact - it is the Democrat party that is, has, and always will be the party of, by, and for racism, and has been since the days long ago of Andrew Jackson ( "Trail of Tears?!"). From the Confederacy, to segregation and Jim Crow, to today, when liberal Dem's"rent out" illegals to save a buck or two, they are utter and rank hypocrites, which goes hand in hand with their lack of intellectual seriousness on any issue of importance. We must suppose that the price of representative democracy is the existence of one party that will cater to the ignorance of humanity, as counterpoint to another appealing to it's finer nature.And Obama sees Lincoln in the mirror? Lincoln?! Shame on you sir, shame!...TThe police chief of Birmingham, Alabama during the civil rights era was a Democrat. A member of the Ku Klux Klan, Eugene "Bull" Connor had been a Democrat state legislator and a delegate to the 1948 Democratic National Convention.

In 1963, police under Connor's command attacked several thousand African-American schoolchildren who were demonstrating peacefully for their civil rights. At the time, it should be noted, he was the Democratic National Committeeman for Alabama. Connor's men used high-pressure hoses, clubs and dogs in their assault, and then jailed nearly a thousand children. A year after attacking the children, Connor was elected, as a Democrat, to statewide office.

How did it come to be that African-Americans in Alabama were so oppressed?

In 1901, the Alabama Democratic Party called for a convention to write a new state constitution that would prohibit African-Americans from voting. Despite vocal opposition from Booker T. Washington and other Republican civil rights activists, the Democrat scam succeeded.

Democrats dominated Alabama's 1901 constitutional convention, and its chairman was a Democrat. In his opening address, he said:

"If we would have white supremacy, we must establish it by law -- not by force or fraud... The negro is descended from a race lowest in intelligence and moral precepts of all the races of men."

Alabama's African-American citizens would not vote in appreciable numbers again until the 1950s. It was a Republican federal judge, Frank Johnson, who in 1956 ruled in favor of Rosa Parks and who in 1965 ordered the Democrat governor, George Wallace, to permit Martin Luther King's voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery.

At the 2000 Republican National Convention, Condoleezza Rice said:

"The first Republican I knew was my father, and he is still the Republican I most admire. He joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did. My father has never forgotten that day, and neither have I."

And, as Republicans celebrate Martin Luther King Day, they should remember that his struggle was against Democrats.Full article in new window

Monday, January 19, 2009

"Dr. Kunihiko, Chancellor of Japan's Institute of Science and Technology said this: "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or the other ... every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so." Now why would a learned man say such a crazy thing?"

We all know why - political correctness, which is a pseudonym for global socialism, which can only be achieved if we implement their massively self destructive climate change plans...T

If you're wondering why North America is starting to resemble nuclear winter, then you missed the news.

At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world's top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?"

I asked myself, why would such obviously smart guy say such a ridiculous thing? But it turns out he's right.

The earth's temperature peaked in 1998. It's been falling ever since; it dropped dramatically in 2007 and got worse in 2008, when temperatures touched 1980 levels.

Meanwhile, the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center released conclusive satellite photos showing that Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels. What's more, measurements of Antarctic ice now show that its accumulation is up 5 percent since 1980.

In other words, during what was supposed to be massive global warming, the biggest chunks of ice on earth grew larger. Just as an aside, do you remember when the hole in the ozone layer was going to melt Antarctica? But don't worry, we're safe now, that was the nineties.

Dr. Kunihiko, Chancellor of Japan's Institute of Science and Technology said this: "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or the other ... every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so." Now why would a learned man say such a crazy thing?

This is where the looney left gets lost. Their mantra is atmospheric CO2 levels are escalating and this is unquestionably causing earth's temperature rise. But ask yourself -- if global temperatures are experiencing the biggest sustained drop in decades, while CO2 levels continue to rise -- how can it be true?

Ironically, in spite of being shown false, we must now pray for it. Because a massive study, just released by the Russian Government, contains overwhelming evidence that earth is on the verge of another Ice Age.

Based on core samples from Russia's Vostok Station in Antarctica, we now know earth's atmosphere and temperature for the last 420,000 years. This evidence suggests that the 12,000 years of warmth we call the Holocene period is over.

Apparently, we're headed into an ice age of about 100,000 years -- give or take. As for CO2 levels, core samples show conclusively they follow the earth's temperature rise, not lead it.

It turns out CO2 fluctuations follow the change in sea temperature. As water temperatures rise, oceans release additional dissolved CO2 -- like opening a warm brewsky.

To think, early last year, liberals suggested we spend 45 trillion dollars and give up five million jobs to fix global warming. But there is good news: now that we don't have to spend any of that money, we can give it all to the banks.Full article in new window

Friday, January 16, 2009

"The very continuation by Democrats of Bush's policies will be grudging, if silent, acknowledgement of how much he got right"

Absolutely sums it up! President Bush will be fondly remembered in the history books, as Truman was. He will get there much quicker though. As described below, the process has already begun. What is the fanatical left going to say now, eh?!...T

Except for Richard Nixon, no president since Harry Truman leaves office more unloved than George W. Bush. Truman's rehabilitation took decades. Bush's will come sooner. Indeed, it has already begun. The chief revisionist? Barack Obama.

Vindication is being expressed not in words but in deeds -- the tacit endorsement conveyed by the Obama continuity-we-can-believe-in transition. It's not just the retention of such key figures as Secretary of Defense Bob Gates or Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner, who, as president of the New York Fed, has been instrumental in guiding the Bush financial rescue over the last year. It's the continuity of policy.

It is the repeated pledge to conduct a withdrawal from Iraq that does not destabilize its new democracy and that, as Vice President-elect Joe Biden said just this week in Baghdad, adheres to the Bush-negotiated status of forces agreement that envisions a U.S. withdrawal over three years, not the 16-month timetable on which Obama campaigned.

It is the great care Obama is taking in not pre-emptively abandoning the anti-terror infrastructure that the Bush administration leaves behind. While still a candidate, Obama voted for the expanded presidential wiretapping (FISA) powers that Bush had fervently pursued. And while Obama opposes waterboarding (already banned, by the way, by Bush's CIA in 2006), he declined George Stephanopoulos' invitation (on ABC's "This Week") to outlaw all interrogation not permitted by the Army Field Manual. Explained Obama: "Dick Cheney's advice was good, which is let's make sure we know everything that's being done," i.e., before throwing out methods simply because Obama campaigned against them.

Obama still disagrees with Cheney's view of the acceptability of some of these techniques. But citing as sage the advice offered by "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history" (according to Joe Biden) -- advice paraphrased by Obama as "we shouldn't be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric" -- is a startlingly early sign of a newly respectful consideration of the Bush-Cheney legacy.

Not from any change of heart. But from simple reality. The beauty of democratic rotations of power is that when the opposition takes office, cheap criticism and calumny will no longer do. The Democrats now own Iraq. They own the war on al-Qaeda. And they own the panoply of anti-terror measures with which the Bush administration kept us safe these last seven years.

Which is why Obama is consciously creating a gulf between what he now dismissively calls "campaign rhetoric" and the policy choices he must now make as president. Accordingly, Newsweek -- Obama acolyte and scourge of everything Bush/Cheney -- has on the eve of the Democratic restoration miraculously discovered the arguments for warrantless wiretaps, enhanced interrogation and detention without trial. Indeed, Newsweek's neck-snapping cover declares, "Why Obama May Soon Find Virtue in Cheney's Vision of Power."

Obama will be loath to throw away the tools that have kept the homeland safe. Just as he will be loath to jeopardize the remarkable turnaround in American fortunes in Iraq.

Obama opposed the war. But the war is all but over. What remains is an Iraq turned from aggressive, hostile power in the heart of the Middle East to an emerging democracy openly allied with the United States. No president would want to be responsible for undoing that success.

In Iraq, Bush rightly took criticism for all that went wrong -- the WMD fiasco, Abu Ghraib, the descent into bloody chaos in 2005-06. Then Bush goes to Baghdad to ratify the ultimate post-surge success of that troubled campaign -- the signing of a strategic partnership between the U.S. and Iraq -- and ends up dodging two size-10 shoes for his pains.

Absorbing that insult was Bush's final service on Iraq. Whatever venom the war generated is concentrated on Bush himself. By having personalized the responsibility for the awfulness of the war, Bush has done his successor a favor. Obama enters office with a strategic success on his hands -- while Bush leaves the scene taking a shoe for his country.

Which is why I suspect Bush showed such equanimity during a private farewell interview at the White House a few weeks ago. He leaves behind the sinews of war, for the creation of which he has been so vilified but which will serve his successor -- and his country -- well over the coming years. The very continuation by Democrats of Bush's policies will be grudging, if silent, acknowledgement of how much he got right.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

A very good summary of Bush's achievements these last eight years, which have truly been substantial, if not politically so in the near term.The opinion here is that the two best chroniclers of these said years have been VDH and Barnes.On Climate Socialism, Intelligence gathering, Presidential powers, support for Israel, the Surge, promoting worldwide democracy, national security, the Supreme Court, and reducing Taxes, among others, Bush has left a powerful legacy indeed...T

The postmortems on the presidency of George W. Bush are all wrong. The liberal line is that Bush dangerously weakened America's position in the world and rushed to the aid of the rich and powerful as income inequality worsened. That is twaddle. Conservatives--okay, not all of them--have only been a little bit kinder. They give Bush credit for the surge that saved Iraq, but not for much else.

He deserves better. His presidency was far more successful than not. And there's an aspect of his decision-making that merits special recognition: his courage. Time and time again, Bush did what other presidents, even Ronald Reagan, would not have done and for which he was vilified and abused. That--defiantly doing the right thing--is what distinguished his presidency.

Bush had ten great achievements (and maybe more) in his eight years in the White House, starting with his decision in 2001 to jettison the Kyoto global warming treaty so loved by Al Gore, the environmental lobby, elite opinion, and Europeans. The treaty was a disaster, with India and China exempted and economic decline the certain result. Everyone knew it. But only Bush said so and acted accordingly.

He stood athwart mounting global warming hysteria and yelled, "Stop!" He slowed the movement toward a policy blunder of worldwide impact, providing time for facts to catch up with the dubious claims of alarmists. Thanks in part to Bush, the supposed consensus of scientists on global warming has now collapsed. The skeptics, who point to global cooling over the past decade, are now heard loud and clear. And a rational approach to the theory of manmade global warming is possible.

Second, enhanced interrogation of terrorists. Along with use of secret prisons and wireless eavesdropping, this saved American lives. How many thousands of lives? We'll never know. But, as Charles Krauthammer said recently, "Those are precisely the elements which kept us safe and which have prevented a second attack."

Crucial intelligence was obtained from captured al Qaeda leaders, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with the help of waterboarding. Whether this tactic--it creates a drowning sensation--is torture is a matter of debate. John McCain and many Democrats say it is. Bush and Vice President Cheney insist it isn't. In any case, it was necessary. Lincoln once made a similar point in defending his suspension of habeas corpus in direct defiance of Chief Justice Roger Taney. "Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?" Lincoln asked. Bush understood the answer in wartime had to be no.

Bush's third achievement was the rebuilding of presidential authority, badly degraded in the era of Vietnam, Watergate, and Bill Clinton. He didn't hesitate to conduct wireless surveillance of terrorists without getting a federal judge's okay. He decided on his own how to treat terrorists and where they should be imprisoned. Those were legitimate decisions for which the president, as commander in chief, should feel no need to apologize.

Defending, all the way to the Supreme Court, Cheney's refusal to disclose to Congress the names of people he'd consulted on energy policy was also enormously important. Democratic congressman Henry Waxman demanded the names, but the Court upheld Cheney, 7-2. Last week, Cheney defended his refusal, waspishly noting that Waxman "doesn't call me up and tell me who he's meeting with."

Achievement number four was Bush's unswerving support for Israel. Reagan was once deemed Israel's best friend in the White House. Now Bush can claim the title. He ostracized Yasser Arafat as an impediment to peace in the Middle East. This infuriated the anti-Israel forces in Europe, the Third World, and the United Nations, and was criticized by champions of the "peace process" here at home. Bush was right.

He was clever in his support. Bush announced that Ariel Sharon should withdraw the tanks he'd sent into the West Bank in 2002, then exerted zero pressure on Sharon to do so. And he backed the wall along Israel's eastern border without endorsing it as an official boundary, while knowing full well that it might eventually become exactly that. He was a loyal friend.

His fifth success was No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the education reform bill cosponsored by America's most prominent liberal Democratic senator Edward Kennedy. The teachers' unions, school boards, the education establishment, conservatives adamant about local control of schools--they all loathed the measure and still do. It requires two things they ardently oppose, mandatory testing and accountability.

Kennedy later turned against NCLB, saying Bush is shortchanging the program. In truth, federal education spending is at record levels. Another complaint is that it forces teachers to "teach to the test." The tests are on math and reading. They are tests worth teaching to.

Sixth, Bush declared in his second inaugural address in 2005 that American foreign policy (at least his) would henceforth focus on promoting democracy around the world. This put him squarely in the Reagan camp, but he was lambasted as unrealistic, impractical, and a tool of wily neoconservatives. The new policy gave Bush credibility in pressing for democracy in the former Soviet republics and Middle East and in zinging various dictators and kleptocrats. It will do the same for President Obama, if he's wise enough to hang onto it.

The seventh achievement is the Medicare prescription drug benefit, enacted in 2003. It's not only wildly popular; it has cost less than expected by triggering competition among drug companies. Conservatives have deep reservations about the program. But they shouldn't have been surprised. Bush advocated the drug benefit in the 2000 campaign. And if he hadn't acted, Democrats would have, with a much less attractive result.

Then there were John Roberts and Sam Alito. In putting them on the Supreme Court and naming Roberts chief justice, Bush achieved what had eluded Richard Nixon, Reagan, and his own father. Roberts and Alito made the Court indisputably more conservative. And the good news is Roberts, 53, and Alito, 58, should be justices for decades to come.

Bush's ninth achievement has been widely ignored. He strengthened relations with east Asian democracies (Japan, South Korea, Australia) without causing a rift with China. On top of that, he forged strong ties with India. An important factor was their common enemy, Islamic jihadists. After 9/11, Bush made the most of this, and Indian leaders were receptive. His state dinner for Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 was a lovefest.

Finally, a no-brainer: the surge. Bush prompted nearly unanimous disapproval in January 2007 when he announced he was sending more troops to Iraq and adopting a new counterinsurgency strategy. His opponents initially included the State Department, the Pentagon, most of Congress, the media, the foreign policy establishment, indeed the whole world. This makes his decision a profile in courage. Best of all, the surge worked. Iraq is now a fragile but functioning democracy.

How does Bush rank as a president? We won't know until he's judged from the perspective of two or three decades. Hindsight forced a sharp upgrading of the presidencies of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. Given his achievements, it may have the same effect for Bush.Full article in new window

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Is it Israel or Palestine? What about the west bank and Gaza? Obviously the Drive-By's care not a whit about history (or the truth...) so here's some facts - not from this author, but straight from the encyclopedia. Facts, not passions:- 1: Palestine was an ancestral name given Israel by the Roman Empire, as it's province, and entirely Jewish in nature- 2: There has NEVER been any such thing as a "Palestinian"- 3: The name Palestine disappeared from History for thousands of years - until Winston Churchill brought it back as the new name for the conquered regions of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire - to be used as the new homeland for the Jews. Yes, ALL OF IT: Modern day Israel, the west bank and Gaza, and ALL of Jordan...T

In March 1949, Transjordan announced its annexation of what is now commonly known as the West Bank, renaming it the West Bank, a reference to its location west of the Jordan River. Only two countries, however recognized this annexation: Britain and Pakistan. It is unknown why Pakistan recognized this annexation.Full article in new window

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Even leftist ex-military types despise Panetta, like the author, a career intelligence officer in the US Army. He has a long record of wanting to gut intelligence...T

WOULD you ask your accountant to perform brain surgery on your child? That's the closest analogy I can find to the choice of Democratic Party hack Leon Panetta to head the CIA.

Earth to President-elect Obama: Intelligence is serious. And infernally complicated. When we politicize it - as we have for 16 years - we get 9/11. Or, yes, Iraq.

The extreme left, to which Panetta's nomination panders, howled that Bush and Cheney corrupted the intelligence system. Well, I worked in the intel world in the mid 1990s and saw how the Clinton team undermined the system's integrity.

Al Qaeda a serious threat? The Clinton White House didn't want to hear it. Clinton was the pioneer in corrupting intelligence. Bush was just a follow-on homesteader.

Now we've fallen so low that left-wing cadres can applaud the nomination of a CIA chief whose sole qualification is that he's a party loyalist, untainted by experience.

The director's job at the CIA isn't a party favor. This is potentially a matter of life and death for thousands of Americans. But the choice of Panetta tells us all that Barack Obama doesn't take intelligence seriously.

Mark my words: It'll bite him in the butt.

After the military, the intel community is the most complex arm of government. You can't do on-the-job training at the top. While a CIA boss needn't be a career intelligence professional, he or she does need a deep familiarity with the purposes, capabilities, limitations and intricacies of intelligence.

Oh, and you'd better understand the intelligence bureaucracy.

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), who was blindsided - and appalled - by the Obama mafia's choice, has the essential knowledge of how the system works. She, or a similar expert, should have gotten this nod. But the president-elect wanted a clean-slate yes-man, not a person of knowledge and integrity.

We're witnessing the initial costs of Obama's career-long lack of interest in foreign policy, the military and intelligence. He doesn't think the top job at the CIA's important and just wants political cover on that flank. (Guess we got Panetta because Caroline Kennedy has another engagement.)

Forget a "team of rivals." Obama's creating a campaign staff for 2012.

Of course, he's reeling from the shrill rage of the Moveon.org crowd over his nomination of grown-ups to be his national-security adviser, director of national intelligence, administrator of veterans' affairs and, yes, secretary of state. (By the way, how could Hillary be dumb enough to accept a job where success is impossible?)

Panetta's appointment is a sop to the hard left, a signal that intelligence will be emasculated for the next four - or eight - years.

Think morale's been bad at the CIA? Just wait.

Conservatives played into this scenario by insisting that any CIA analysis that didn't match the Bush administration's positions perfectly amounted to an attack on the White House. Well, sorry. The intelligence community's job isn't to make anybody feel good - its core mission is to provide nonpartisan analysis to our leaders.

To be a qualified D-CIA, a man or woman needs a sophisticated grasp of three things: The intel system, foreign-policy challenges and the Pentagon (which owns most of our intelligence personnel and hardware). Panetta has no background - none - in any of these areas. He was never interested.

If you handed Leon Panetta a blank map of Asia, I'd bet my life he couldn't plot Baghdad, Kabul or Beijing within 500 miles of their actual locations. (Maybe he can see China from his California think tank?)

This shameless hack appointment is the first action by the incoming administration that seriously worries me. Get intelligence wrong and you get dead Americans.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

God bless the author for this thoughtful look ahead, and behind, to assess GW's legacy. I cannot agree more. As I have been writing in this page for years now, he will be fondly remembered, and soon...T

President George W. Bush departs with low approval ratings. Appraisals of presidents sometimes change over time, and sometimes they don’t. Harry Truman was deeply unpopular in his time but is now revered. James Buchanan let the country slide toward civil war and is still considered our worst president. How will Bush’s legacy fare? Politico asked the experts to consider his place in history.

George W. Bush, like Harry Truman, was president when an unexpected attack inflicted a terrible defeat on the United States. Unlike the far-away launch of the Korean War, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, savaged the heart of Manhattan and came close to crippling the national government in Washington.

Bush quickly rallied the country’s confidence at Yankee Stadium, spoke to its sorrows at the National Cathedral and announced its firm resolve to the world in his address to the Congress. He then directed the takedown of the Taliban and, with it, the support structure and command-and-control capabilities of Al Qaeda, which began the complete overhaul of the national security apparatus of the United States.

This reorientation of America’s defenses toward the long conflict with radical and networked Islamist jihadists has been both remarkable and remarkably successful, and it has been begun in such a way as to avoid obscuring the growing competition with China and the threats posed by rogue states such as North Korea, Libya, Iraq and Iran.

The change from Cold War to no war to the long war ahead is far from complete. “You only get eight years,” Vice President Dick Cheney coolly remarked, conveying that part of a presidential legacy is a mature understanding that you cannot play to win just the matches in which you are captain.

Bush led the world to remove one of its most dangerous (and, thanks to Oil-for-Food, corrupting) dictators, devised a joint containment strategy of the despot of the Far East and completely but quietly disarmed Muammar Khaddafi of his massive stocks of weapons of mass destruction and his A.Q. Khan-supplied nuclear technology in the aftermath of the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

When Iran attempted to exploit the American intervention into Iraq, Bush countered that thrust with the surge, and as he leaves office, that counteroffensive is succeeding. New alliances with the states of the former Soviet Union are deepening as a result of the 43rd president’s strategic direction, especially in Poland and Bulgaria. A genuine missile shield has been deployed, and an archaic treaty that crippled America’s ability to defend itself has dissolved.

Our alliance with Israel is as strong as it has ever been, and our commitment to helping Israel repulse any thrusts by its enemies in Gaza and Lebanon is strong. Lebanon is better off than it was but not as free of Syrian influence as it should be. Hezbollah remains the cat’s paw of the Iranian theocracy, but the world does not doubt its true nature, and clarity is a valuable thing. There is clarity about Hamas, as well, and about many other networked jihadists. Even as Bush prepares to leave office, Israel is relying on the unwavering support of the president in its latest clashes with Hamas.

Bush’s much criticized communications strategy — I am one of the most frequent critics here — pushed key themes again and again. A relentless, though often ineloquent, focus on the evildoers has left no one in doubt about the central challenge of our time, and the Bush Doctrine is one of only three options in dealing with the combination of Islamist fanaticism and operational ability to deliver massive blows to our homeland.

The alternatives — fecklessness and appeasement (eloquent or not, it doesn’t matter) — may return to Washington, but if they do, the consequences will be at least as staggering as those of Sept. 11. Bush’s clarity about not waiting to be struck again and about the need to move decisively against rogue regimes that are believed to possess WMD is a model for future presidents that will be ignored at their and our peril.

Removal of the threat can be by force of arms, as with Iraq, or by force of will, as with Libya, but there is no safe alternative to the Bush Doctrine if the regime is a menace with the means to strike the U.S. directly or through proxies. Bush’s doctrines have defined the choices ahead, and will be used to evaluate his successors’ policies via the jihadists and their ambitions for WMD.

The complete overhaul of the strategic posture of the United States in the seven years since Sept. 11 is half of the central legacy of George Bush. The domestic accomplishments of this center-right president are large and interesting — No Child Left Behind and prescription drug legislation, to name two — and his failures were ambitious and politically significant, Social Security reform and immigration overhaul most prominent among them.

Bush’s grand achievement on the domestic side was the most recent turn of a triple play of tax cuts — John F. Kennedy’s, Ronald Reagan’s and his own — all of which prove the incredible economic wisdom of allowing people to keep more of the money they make. It is unfortunately a lesson that is as quickly unlearned as it is productive when relearned. We are watching its unlearning now. Someone down the road will make it four for four.

The long run of economic growth that ended with the subprime crisis was the product of low marginal tax rates. The bubbles that burst did not destroy that truth any more than their explosions undermined the wisdom of free trade, for which Bush was a tireless campaigner. The appointments of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito will play out over decades and cannot possibly be evaluated now.

The other part of Bush’s central legacy will be the example of the correct temperament of a commander in chief in wartime. Though relentlessly attacked by a domestic left wing deranged by fear or hate, Bush refused the temptation to return in kind the abuse he received. The campaign of 2004 was tough, but there was nothing in it or in Bush’s administration remotely approaching the scale of dirty tricks that marked many episodes in the years from Kennedy through Bill Clinton regarding the treatment of political enemies. Bush’s reserve when it came to political hardball is a standard of crucial significance for the long war ahead.

The Plame affair was a burlesque from start to finish, signifying nothing except the crazed nature of the president’s opponents. Like the charges of “Bush lied, people died” and of Bush-led massive assaults on civil liberties, historians will mock such absurd indictments.

Throughout this political hysteria, Bush stayed calm and governed with an eye toward protecting the whole country, which he did. Whether competent state and local authorities might have prevented the Hurricane Katrina chaos we will never know, but it won’t be more than a relatively small chapter in the histories written about Bush. His refusal to snarl back will be part of that chapter and part of a much larger theme about dignity and grace in the exercise of power.

Estimable temperament has marked Bush’s management of the war, as well — mistakes and all. Like Lincoln, he picked commanders and followed their recommendations until overwhelming evidence of failure could no longer allow him to do so, and then he changed commanders. As with Lincoln, this approach to command led to some defeats on the battlefield. But unlike Lyndon B. Johnson’s meddling, it did not lead to a strategic defeat. Bush’s deep love for the troops he has commanded is obvious; his sorrow for those who have lost a spouse, a child or a parent is profound; and his concern for the wounded has set a standard that should be matched by all future presidents. Bush is deeply loved by the military. In wartime, that is among the most important measures.

Bush’s greatest failing was a surprising one given his skill as a politician. Combined with his two wins as governor and his transformation of Texas politics, Bush won five of six great political battles, including the off-year contests of 2002 — a rare accomplishment. But he could not provide a path for a successor. The success of the surge and the defense of the U.S. homeland against another terrorist attack turned the battle to succeed Bush into one of the strangest campaigns ever, one in which the most important issue — the war — was rarely discussed. Bush’s immediate move to smooth the president-elect’s path to power is a part of his admirable record as an American president with uniquely American traditions to uphold.

No doubt the Internet dervishes will pepper this and other assessments of Bush with their standard displays of anonymous ferocity. There are a lot of 14-year-olds with Internet connections. But when the Jon Meacham of 150 years from now goes about his task with Bush, that historian will have as much material and more, as did the author of “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.” And the verdict will be nearly the same: Here was an extraordinary and controversial man who accomplished a great deal, lost many battles, stood by his friends sometimes too long and could be stubborn beyond political calculation but who accomplished his most urgent task of protecting the union against its many enemies. The successful completion of that task is what all great presidents have in common.

Bush’s great legacy is the peaceful transition of power in an age of terror, a legacy made possible by his courage and his resolve to take the battle to our enemies, confront and defeat them wherever they could be found, contain them when they could not be attacked, and demand of the world a seriousness about the threat that remains real and deadly in its intentions. He has modeled how to act as president in this new media age of virulent venom at home and of fanatical violence and hatred abroad — with detachment toward the former and courage toward the latter.

Count me among the 30 percent, which will soon be 40 percent — and then more than 50 percent much sooner than most of the chattering class can conceive. Bush is deeply loved and respected in places as diverse as remote villages in Africa and booming tech centers in India and, despite the noise from a left still trying to diminish his character, among tens of millions of Americans grateful for the care he has taken to protect them and their families.

But his greatest admirers will be Americans, and perhaps Afghans, Iraqis, Israelis, Indians and Africans a century or more from now who read about his record and resolve in so many efforts will marvel at his restraint and credit his faith and his family for a remarkable service to freedom.Full article in new window

Saturday, January 03, 2009

This from IBD. One wonders if Osama will now get credit for "winning" in Iraq? That's a rhetorical question, as we all know what spin the MSM drive-by's will take.

So what would happen if the U.S. won a war but the media didn't tell the American public? Apparently, we have to rely on a British newspaper for the news that we've defeated the last remnants of al-Qaida in Iraq...T

London 's Sunday Times called it 'the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.' A terrorist force that once numbered more than 12,000, with strongholds in the west and central regions of Iraq, has over two years been reduced to a mere 1,200 fighters, backed against the wall in the northern city of Mosul.

The destruction of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) is one of the most unlikely and unforeseen events in the long history of American warfare. We can thank President Bush's surge strategy, in which he bucked both Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington by increasing our forces there instead of surrendering.

We can also thank the leadership of the new general he placed in charge there, David Petraeus, who may be the foremost expert in the world on counter-insurgency warfare. And we can thank those serving in our military in Iraq who engaged local Iraqi tribal leaders and convinced them America was their friend and AQI their enemy.

Al-Qaida's loss of the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis began in Anbar Province, which had been written off as a basket case, and spread out from there.

Now, in Operation Lion's Roar the Iraqi army and the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is destroying the fraction of terrorists who are left. More than 1,000 AQI operatives have already been apprehended.

Sunday Times (London) reporter Marie Colvin, traveling with Iraqi forces in Mosul, found little AQI presence even in bullet-ridden residential areas that were once insurgency strongholds, and reported that the terrorists have lost control of its Mosul urban base, with what is left of the organization having fled south into the countryside.

Meanwhile, the State Department reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has achieved 'satisfactory' progress on 15 of the 18 political benchmarks 'a big change for the better from a year ago.'

Things are going so well that Maliki has even for the first time floated the idea of a timetable for withdrawal of American forces. He did so while visiting the United Arab Emirates , which over the weekend announced that it was forgiving almost $7 billion of debt owed by Baghdad, an impressive vote of confidence from a fellow Arab state in the future of a free Iraq.

But where are the headlines and the front-page stories about all this good news? As the Media Research Center pointed out last week, 'the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 were silent Tuesday night about the benchmarks 'that signaled political progress.'

The war in Iraq has been turned around 180 degrees both militarily and politically because the president stuck to his guns. Yet apart from IBD, Fox News Channel and parts of the foreign press, the media d oes n't seem to consider this historic event a big story.